Let The Revolution Take Its Toll
by QuothTheRaven42
Summary: Apostate, revolutionary, abomination. The story of Anders, as told in snapshots.
1. By The Light Of The Moon

So, what's basically going on here is I signed up for a drabble a day challenge (though my understanding of the concept of a "drabble" seems to be less than perfect, as most of these have fallen upwards of two hundred words...) and chose Anders as my theme. I then get a prompt every day and write a drabble using that prompt. What follows is a collection of those drabbles in the order in which they were written. Though these are all set in the same universe, they are _not_ in chronological order. They're going to skip all over the place, from pre-Origins all the way through post-DAII. As such, they include spoilers for any and all games and supporting material. Consider yourself warned.

Disclaimer: I don't own it. Sorry to disappoint.

_Prompt: moonlight _

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><p><strong>By the Light of the Moon<strong>

Anders is seventeen years old and hasn't seen the night sky in five years. He wishes he could attribute the timing of his second escape attempt to that fact – a rationale he deems suitably romantic – but in reality it is more a happy coincidence. Getting out of the Tower is easier when no one is awake but for a few bored Templars, after all.

That does nothing to stop the wave of giddiness that rushes over him as he steps out of the great shadow of the Circle Tower and catches sight of the reflection of the moon in the calm waters of Lake Calenhad. There is a heady kind of joy in taking the time to appreciate such simple pleasures, things he had taken for granted in the first twelve years of his life. Even if he has nothing else good to say about the Tower, he will be the first to admit that it gives one a healthy respect for the small things in life. Of course, it only manages _that_ by taking them away, but still...

He tilts his face up, basking in the moonlight for a moment more before returning to the task at hand. He only has so long before his absence is noticed and not even the feel of night air on his face is worth risking recapture. There will be other nights to sit and stare up at the stars. He will make sure of that.


	2. Ashes of Another Life

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

_Prompt: if only_

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><p><strong>Ashes of Another Life<strong>

He wonders sometimes what would have happened if he had met her before Justice, before he was so inextricably bound to the spirit's vendetta. Would he still have agreed to the merge? Still have devoted himself to the fight for mage freedom? Or would he have dedicated his life to something else entirely? "All I want is a pretty girl, a ht meal, and the right to shoot lightning at fools," he had told the Warden-Commander once, what seemed like a lifetime ago. Could he have found that with Hawke? Not amongst the Wardens, not with the Templars _his_ Commander would never have allowed to set foot inside the Keep. But maybe somewhere else, by the saw far away from the Circle and the Chantry and all their Maker-cursed laws. Just the two of them building a life together, surrounded by tiny children with her eyes and his magic and no one to call them monsters for it. Could they have been happy, in that other life?

Anders shoves the thought aside. Too late now. Far too late. He turns away from Meredith and Orsino, from Hawke's tremulous _what have you done?_ He times it perfectly, looking up to the skyline as the Chantry erupts in a pillar of fire, the effect painstakingly crafted with a combination of magic and dwarven science. He refuses to meet Hawke's gaze, can't see the expression across her face. She never was much good at hiding her emotions and he cannot face the rejection, even hatred he knows he will see there. He hopes, pointlessly, idly, that he was right, that in another time, another place they could have been happy together. Could have had something more than heartbreak, than betrayal.


	3. Absent Without Leave

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

_Prompt: losing you_

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><p><strong>Absent Without Leave<strong>

"You're _leaving_?"

Anders watched in growing horror as his only real defense against the Templars stuffed another set of clothing into her bag. Kallian Tabris looked up at him with an apologetic shrug.

"I've got... unfinished business in Antiva City," she explained, one hand drifting up to absently toy with the gold hoop dangling from her left ear. "I left orders for Nathaniel to take over as commander – if Weisshaupt knows what's good for them they won't try to override them."

Anders avoided all comments about his opinion of the intelligence of the head Wardens in favor of a far more pressing concern.

"You're coming back, though. Right?"

Kallian grinned. "Of course I am; you lot would never survive without me. Shouldn't be gone for more than a few weeks, really. Just you wait – I'll be back before you even notice I'm gone."

With that she swung her pack onto her back and gave Anders a little wave as she walked out of the room, out of the Keep, out of the Wardens.

Three months, one Fade spirit, and twelve dead Templars later, Anders stopped waiting.


	4. Defining Moments

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

_Prompt: defining moment_

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><p><strong>Defining Moments<strong>

When Anders is eleven he sets the roof of his family's barn on fire. Unaware of the eventual consequences of this new development - there were no mages in their tiny village, nothing to warn him what was to come - the boy delighted in the blaze, in the power he could feel crackling at his fingertips.

But his parents' reaction to his big news was far from the happiness he expected. Instead his mother watched with tears in her big brown eyes as his father threw him in the cellar, curses on his lips. He was damned by the Maker, his father told him, His punishment for the sins of their family.

Anders spent his twelfth birthday locked up, alone in the dark.

A week later the Templars showed up, big men with sharp swords and sharper eyes. When they shoved him to the ground, his ears ringing with their insults and abuses, he pushed himself up to meet their gaze. Hatred burned in his veins and he glared at the Templars surrounding him with his mother's eyes, a wordless dare to do their worst.

He would not be broken.


	5. Author Unknown

This one? Definitely written because I was getting tired of all the constant angst. So... fluffish type things?

Disclaimer: This continues to not belong to me.

_Prompt: Journal Entry_

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><p><strong>Author Unknown<strong>

"Whatcha doing?"

The irritated wrinkle between Kallian's brows when she looked up from whatever she was writing to see Anders hovering over her desk was priceless. Anders collected these little breaks in his commander's composure, each one a reminder that even the mighty Hero of Ferelden was as fallible as anyone else.

"Writing," she replied as Ser Pounce-a-lot leaped off Anders' shoulder to sniff at the inkwell on Kallian's desk.

"Obviously. What are you writing?" Anders grinned when she moved to cover the page she was working on. "Ooh, secretive. Is it a love letter? Tell me it's a dirty love letter to that Antivan of yours. Please. I will give you five sovereigns if you say that."

The furrows on Kallian's brows deepened and the tips of her pointed ears turned pink. "Don't be absurd."

"So what is it, then?"

Her only response was a deeper flush. Anders felt his curiosity skyrocket – something more embarrassing than naughty letters? Now he _had_ to know.

Kallian sighed as she caught sight of the look in his eyes.

"Oh, sod it all." The Commander, Anders decided, had spent far too much time with the dwarves to be at all healthy. She was beginning to sound like one. "It's... it's a journal. I write down what happens so that I won't forget. And just in case they ever try to write another one of those horrid books about my 'adventures.'"

And oh, Anders could _feel_ the gleeful smirk that crossed his face at that. "A _journal_, hmm? Am I in it? I think I should be in it. A star character, even. I mean, what kind of story would it be without a devastatingly handsome mage running around, saving the day?"

Another sigh and a quiet thunk as Kallian's forehead hit the top of the desk. "A much quieter one, I'd wager," she muttered. Anders noted that she did not contradict the "devastatingly handsome" and basked in the smug pleasure that brought. Then he had another very important thought.

"What about Ser Pounce-a-Lot? He's in there, right? Every dashing hero needs a kitty!"


	6. Last One Standing

Disclaimer: Not mine

_Prompt: journal entry_

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><p><strong>Last One Standing<strong>

_An excerpt from the private journal of Alianne Hawke_

_2 Justinian, 9:37 Dragon_

Anders is dead.

He paid for his crimes against Kirkwall with his life. The details are irrelevant: all that matters is that I have killed the only man I ever loved. My city is aflame, my companions splintered, and my lover branded a murder and a traitor.

I don't know where to go from here.

Since leaving Lothering I have lost my mother, my sister, and my brother. Anders was all I had left, and now he, too, is gone. And I acted as his judge, his jury, his executioner. His blood stains my hands and no matter how hard I scrub I will never feel clean again.

In the morning I take ship, headed far from Kirkwall. I don't know where we are destined, nor do I care. I just need to leave this Maker-forsaken city.

There is nothing left for me here.


	7. In Death, Sacrifice

Disclaimer: Not mine

_Prompt: pretend_

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><p><strong>In Death, Sacrifice<strong>

Anders steps into the Chantry the moment Hawke has the Grand Cleric's full attention. The weight of the explosives carefully hidden within his robes reminds him with every step what it cost to make it this far. He has lied to the woman he claimed to love, manipulated her desire to heal him to further his own ends. She will not forgive him for this transgression, and he does not expect her to. But he has no choice, has had no choice from the moment he accepted Justice's offer. Once he took that first step he had condemned himself to seeing this through to the end. To whatever end. Hawke did not – _could _not understand this. Anders does not _want_ her to understand. He is signing his own death warrant with his actions tonight and he won't bring her down with him. Justice wants to draw her into this, knows they can convince her to aid their cause. Hawke has never been able to tell him no, after all, and Justice has no qualms about using every available resource to further is cause, about leaving them discarded in his wake. Even her. But for this, for her Anders will fight the spirit with everything he has. He will not let her get hurt, not any more than he must. Instead he will lie and deceive those closest to him so that when the time comes the blame will be laid solely at his feet. She will be safe. He owes her that much.


	8. Stolen Moments

Disclaimer: Not mine

_Prompt: pretend_

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><p><strong>Stolen Moments<strong>

Alianne Hawke has always been, above all else, a realistic woman. She knew from the start that her relationship with Anders would never be a normal one and that was a price she was willing to pay. She would take the nights spent watching him pace in front of the fire with eyes more blue than brown if it meant that she also got the times when he was all hers, when they could pretend that no Fade spirit lurked beneath his skin, no oppressed mages could drag him from her arms. When she could fool herself, just for a moment, into believing that she was the most important thing in his life, as he was in hers. When she could believe that against all odds they could find their happy ending, that there was something more in their future than blood and tears and heartbreak. Just for a moment.


	9. Under His Skin

Disclaimer: Not mine

_Prompt: something there_

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><p><strong>Under His Skin<strong>

She never expected it to be easy – she wasn't an idiot, whatever Fenris might say. Loving an abomination, loving a wanted apostate, loving a man who would always, _always_ put his cause before her; easy wasn't an option for them.

But every day now she saw more and more of Anders slip away, saw Justice (_Vengeance, call him what he is_) simmering beneath his skin, tainting everything he did. Anders was never himself anymore, never the man she had fought beside for seven years, shared her bed and her heart with for nearly as along. He still looked like Anders, certainly, but she knew him well enough by now to see the tell- tale signs of Justice in everything he did, every move he made. His sense of humor was all but gone, replaced with an unrelenting focus on mage freedom that terrified her as much as it depressed her. Gatherings at the Hanged Man had one less member as he locked himself in the bedroom – never _their_ bedroom, even after all these years – churning out copies and revisions of his manifesto. She was losing him to the spirit within his body and she had no idea how to stop it. She wasn't even sure that he would want her to...


	10. Empty Eyes

Disclaimer: Doesn't belong to me

Prompt: First

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><p><strong>Empty Eyes<strong>

Anders is not quite thirteen when he meets his first Tranquil mage. He is exploring the Tower one afternoon when he is supposed to be in his beginning Primal class (he _hates_ that class – full of kids five, six, seven years younger than him and teachers who never bother to conceal their contempt for him, as though he is in a class for six year olds because he's stupid, not because his damned magic had waited until he _twelve_ to manifest...) when he manages to stumble into the second floor stockroom and run – quite literally – into Owain. The Tranquil stares down at him with empty eyes, sunburst brand on his forehead a vivid red against pale skin. Just the sight of him standing there, stiff and uncomfortable and utterly uncaring, sets Anders' teeth on edge with the _wrongness_ of it. Then Owain begins to speak, explains the concept of Tranquility in all its gruesome glory, and Anders has to sprint to the nearest privy to avoid sicking up all over Owain's shoes. Not that he would care (_cut off from the Fade, no dreams, no emotions, preferable to the Harrowing_). Anders shudders as he rinses out his mouth, water sloshing down the front of his robes when his hands shake too hard to hold it. This is – there are no words for how much a violation this is. How do the templars get away with... with _that_? What possible rationalization could there be to strip a person of everything they are?

He can't stay here, he realizes then, can't stay in a place where Tranquility is considered a solution, where the threat of having his very being torn away from him hangs over his head every single day. He can't.

That night, Anders doesn't sleep. He lies awake in his bunk and listens to the soft sounds of his fellow apprentices, the beginnings of an escape plan simmering in his brain. He will not stay here. He cannot.


	11. For The Trees

Disclaimer: Still not mine

_Prompt: forest_

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><p><strong>For The Trees<br>**

He terrified her. Anders, that is. She loved him – Maker, how she loved him – but some days he scared the ever-loving shit out of her. And Alianne Hawke was not a woman easily frightened.

It wasn't that she thought he would hurt her. Not physically, at least (emotionally... well, she would be the first to acknowledge that he would always, _always_ choose his cause over her and one of these days that was going to tear her heart in two). No, what worried her was his blasted crusade. She supported mage freedom – after seven years of living with Anders, she suspected that even the most stalwart templar-sympathizers would have doubts – but the way he went about it... there was no way that could end well.

The Hawkes had had a neighbor back in Lothering, a neurotic little man named Marcus who Mother had always accused of "missing the forest for the trees." With Anders, Hawke suspected that it was the exact opposite: he was so busy staring down the forest that he missed the trees. "Mage freedom" wasn't about freeing individual mages for him, not anymore. Now it was about the concept, the ideals of "justice," "freedom." Nothing else mattered; not him, not her, not the unfortunate mages who happened to get caught in the crossfires of his vendetta. He couldn't see the people whose lives he affected and one day that fact would be the ruin of them all. And it would be Hawke who was left to pick up the pieces, just like always. She prayed she was up to the task.


	12. Sins of the Father

Disclaimer: Not mine

Prompt: ten years

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><p><strong>Sins of the Father<strong>

"Amelia Bethany Hawke, you get back here right this instant!"

A high pitched giggle and flash of blonde curls were the only answer Alianne Hawke received before the ten year old disappeared around a corner. She tugged a hand through her own hair – once brown, now prematurely greyed – and turned to face the First Enchanter.

"Has she been like this all semester?" she asked, her voice tinged with exasperation. "Or is it only because I'm here?"

Irving smiled at her through his wrinkles. Time had taken its toll on him, though his mind was as sharp as ever. "She does seem to have acquired a... boundless enthusiasm recently, though I can't say I'm surprised. Her father was much the same."

A chill swept through Hawke's veins, so strong she had to check the urge to look around for someone casting a frost spell on her. She never had truly lost the battle instincts drilled into her by her years in Kirkwall.

"You knew?" Her voice was barely above a whisper. Irving chuckled.

"My dear, I taught the boy for the better part of a decade – I'd recognize his child anywhere. The question, rather, is does _she_ know?"

"Maker, I hope not," Hawke breathed, glancing down the hallway where her daughter had just disappeared. "I mean, Lia's a doll and I love her to distraction, but she can't keep a secret to save her life. And if people knew..."

"You fear their reactions."

Which... talk about an understatement. "Damned right I do. You know as well as I do how people view him. If Lia's outed as the daughter of a... a murderer, a _terrorist_, how do you think they'll react. She'll never be able to have a normal life. She'll be hated, hunted, all because people can't see past the name of her father. I can't do that to her."

Irving slid a gnarled hand over both of hers, stilling their nervous motions. "I think you do not give people enough credit. They might surprise you."

She wished she could believe that. Truly, she did. But she saw the glares, the silences she received because of her name, because of her ties to what they called the "Kirkwall Incident." To be a Hawke in this world was not easy. To be a Hawke and a mage even less so. Add in anything else – _daughter of a traitor, daughter of an abomination_ – and she might as well sign her daughter's death warrant herself.

Irving seemed to misinterpret her silence for agreement, because he gave her a comforting smile and gestured around them. "After all, in the end he _did_ win."

Hawke followed the line of his arm to the throngs of people crowding the entrance hall of the Circle Tower, parents picking up their mage children, taking them home for the summer. She took in the complete lack of templars, the huge windows that had been knocked into the Tower's walls, reformations paid for in blood and death and war. She laughed, bitter and hollow.

"Yeah, he won," she muttered, not meeting Irving's eyes. She did not add, _and look where that got him_.

_Lying in a pool of his own blood, my knife buried in his spine, _she did not say.

_His name a curse on the lips of devout Andrastians everywhere._

_A specter in the life of a daughter he will never know exists._

"He won."


	13. Glitz

Disclaimer: Not mine.

_Prompt: appearance_

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><p><strong>Glitz<strong>

It was all because of a girl.

Every once in a while it occurred to Anders to be a bit chagrined at the number of his stories that started that way. _It was all because of a girl... Well, there was this girl..._ You'd think he would have learned now to say no to a pretty face by now. But no, the cheerful little elven apprentice had fluttered her lashes and swayed her hips and he had all but fallen over himself in his haste to agree.

He suspected enchantment.

Whatever her methods, it culminated in the two of them sequestered in an empty classroom hours after curfew, him pale and nervous, her approaching him with a needle in one hand and a frost spell ready in the other.

"Oh, stop being such an infant, would you?" she snapped as he shied away from her outstretched hand. "It's not like it's going to hurt."

"Not going to hurt? You're trying to stick a needle _through my flesh_!"

She scoffed at him and knocked his flailing arm out of the way so that she could make a grab for his ear with fingers literally as cold as ice. He let out a high pitched yelp at the cold, then an even louder one when she slid the needle neatly through his earlobe.

"Maker's breath, woman! What was the point of the ice if it didn't numb the damned ear?"

The grin that slipped over her face as she replaced the needle with a thin ring of gold was beyond wicked.

"Because I enjoy making you squeal like a little girl," she said and with a wave of her hand and a wink she sauntered out of the room. Anders lifted his hand to his sore ear and pouted at the now- empty doorway.

"Sadist."

When his bunkmate saw his new accessory the next morning, the idiot nearly fell out of his bed laughing until Anders froze him to his sheets in retaliation. With all that pesky pain out of the way, he decided that he quite liked it, actually. And if the collection of appreciative glances he had already received were any indication, he wasn't the only one. He made a mental note to thank the girl next time he ran into her. This was going to be _magnificent_.


	14. Vivamus, Atque Amemus

So, this one is actually a direct result of trying to write Dragon Age fic in the middle of my Roman Lit class. I... don't even know. According to the Dragon Age wiki, while Arcanum isn't actually supposed to be Latin, it iis/i supposed to be a distant ancestor of English and Tevinter itself is based on the Roman Empire. Therefore, Latin poetry! Because the world cannot have enough Latin poetry. And my explanation for Anders knowing/recognizing the Arcanum? He totally went and learned it in order to impress girls in the Tower. You know it's true.

In case anyone is curious, this story has helpfully been subtitled "why I am not allowed to write fluff" by a friend of mine...

Despite the title, there is no Catullus in the story itself...

For those who are interested, the quoted bits are from Propertius 2 ii .

Disclaimer: Not mine

_Prompt: song lyrics_

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><p><strong>Vivamus, Atque Amemus<strong>

The soft sounds of a lute drifted up the stairs to where Anders lay, a sleeping Hawke sprawled against his chest, his fingers twined through her hair. Orana, he suspected. Sandal had taken a shine to her music and the timid little elven girl for her part had developed a soft spot for the enchanter within minutes of her arrival at the estate. Anders set aside his book and listened, the gentle tune a perfect counterpoint for their lazy day in.

Before long, Orana's voice joined the music of her lute, snatches of ancient Arcanum blending seamlessly with the instrument's melody.

"_Liber eram et vacuo meditabar vivere lecto;_

_at me composita pace fefellit Amor._

_Cur haec in terris facies humana moratur?_"

Anders recognized the words, an old Tevinter poem that he had never before heard put to music, and he pressed a kiss to Hawke's hair as he translated them, adding his own quiet voice to the muted sounds of Orana's.

"_I was free and thought henceforth to lie alone of nights;_

_but though the truce was mad,e Love played me false._

_Why abides such mortal beauty upon earth?_"

As Orana's voice faded away to Sandal's exuberant applause, Anders tightened his arms around Hawke's sleeping form.

"_Nunc scio quid sit amor_."


	15. Adrift

Disclaimer: Not Mine

_Prompt: Writer's Choice_

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><p><strong>Adrift<strong>

If Isabela had learned anything about Hawke in their years of friendship, it was that the woman could all but vanish off the face of Thedas if she had half a mind to. Even trapped on a ship in the middle of the Waking Sea, she had still managed to find a place to hide where even the Captain couldn't track her down, no matter how hard she tried. Though Isabela was not about to let that stop her.

Hawke had not spoken a word to anyone since they had left Kirkwall, sequestering herself in her cabin and avoiding all attempts at human interaction. They had decided as a group – Isabela, Varric, Aveline, and Merril – to leave her be, let her work through her grief in private. None of them had any real idea of what to say, what would help, and Hawke was not the sort of woman to appreciate their attempts at sympathy. But it had been nearly three weeks now and they were running out of ocean. Sooner or later they were going to need to pick a destination and no one was willing to do so without Hawke.

So it had fallen to Isabela, captain of the ship and therefore privy to her secrets, to track down their wayward companion. Her cabin was empty and even that wretched mutt of her seemed unable to find her.

Which meant that no one was more surprised than Isabela herself when she stepped out on deck to find Hawke standing near the port rail, staring off into the waves. Isabela paused at the top of the stairs to study her friend, as though she could read her mental state by the set of her shoulders, the angle of her chin. Hawke wore the same armor she had that last day in Kirkwall, though she had cleaned and mended it at some point since. She braced herself with one hand against the ship's rail and the other pressed against her stomach, staring at it with a pensive sort of expression that Isabela instantly recognized.

"Oh, balls."

She hadn't intended for that to be overheard, but Hawke's head snapped up and her eyes trained on Isabela. The pirate shrugged philosophically – it would work well enough as an introduction, she supposed – and walked forward to stand at Hawke's side.

"How long?" she asked when Hawke made no move to speak, gesturing toward Hawke's abdomen. For her part, Hawke did not bother to feign ignorance, something Isabela appreciated. She simply shifted her gaze back to the water and her hand to the rail, not looking at her companion.

"A little over a month, I think," she murmured, voice so low that Isabela had to strain to hear it over the crashing of the waves.

"Huh." She considered this for a moment, doing the mental math. The week before the Chantry, then. "So, did you screw up or did he?" she asked, forgoing tact in favor of her usual bluntness. "Because I really doubt either of you were planning on having a brood of little abomi-babies just then."

Her choice of words drew a strangled laugh from Hawke, who glanced over at Isabela out of the corner of her eye, mouth quirked in a ghost of a smile.

"Funny thing, that. Turns out that when you're planning massive acts of terrorism, other things tend to slip your mind. Unimportant things, really. Like, you know, contraceptives."

"Huh. Him, then." Another pause. "Did he know?"

Hawke snorted. "Of course not. I didn't even know until a few days after..."

She did not need to finish the sentence for Isabela to know what she meant. A few days after she killed him.

"Would it have changed anything if you had?"

Hawke tugged her lower lip between her teeth, lost in thought. "I'd like to say no, you know? Insist that I would never let my personal life affect my judgment, that I would always be able to stay objective. But this?" She shook her head, though her eyes never left the sea. "I think maybe this would have. And I can't decide if I'm thankful or furious that I'll never find out, that I didn't know until it was far too late." She pushed herself away from the rail with a sigh. "If you're actually going to the all the effort of tracking me down, then I'm going to assume you need a destination." At Isabela's nod, she sighed. "I thought that was the captain's job."

"So did I. But those idiots we travel with have mutinied and won't move without your say-so." Isabela tried to sound put-out by this fact, but the truth was that she couldn't bring herself to be all that bothered. Hawke had lead them all well enough so far, there was no reason to mess with things now.

One more wistful glance out at the horizon and Hawke's expression firmed into her familiar "decision face" - one part determination, one part confidence and eight parts sheer bull-headed stubbornness. Isabela barely stopped herself from sighing in relief when she saw it. Their Hawke was back.

"Set a course for Ferelden, Captain," she ordered, a hint of a smile playing around her mouth. "It's time to go home."


	16. Moments of Truth

Disclaimer: Not mine

_Prompt: alone_

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><p><strong>Moments of Truth<strong>

_"Human identity is the most fragile thing that we have, and it's often only found in moments of truth." - Alan Rudolph_

_"I'm slammed with an identity that can no longer say a word; mute with responsibility." - Kate Millett_

He runs. Away from the bodies, from the blood, from the horrific evidence of what they had done. What _he_ had done. The words get twisted up in his brain – _he him they them_ - until even he can't straighten them out anymore. Who is he? He is Anders. He is Justice. He is Vengeance. He is at once everything and nothing of what he was before. He is no man and he is no spirit. He is both. He is neither. Nothing is clear anymore. Nothing, except his cause.

Freedom. Justice. Vengeance. He offered everything he was for this. (He sacrificed everything he was for this.) It is a touchstone, something that Anders and Justice and this strange entity they have become can recognize, can support. It is a center around which he can rebuild himself, discover who (what) he has become.

Ronan's betrayal means he cannot stay among the Wardens. They will not understand. (No one will understand.) They will try to stop him, will see him as no more than an abomination (isn't he?). No one will understand. He must eliminate all distractions. (He can't let anyone see him like this.) From here on how, he is on his own. This is the price of his transformation. This is the cost of his crusade.

It is Justice who turns from the path to the Vigil. It is Anders who looks back toward the only home he has ever known. It is something else entirely who picks up his staff and walks away.


	17. Firsts

Disclaimer: Not Mine

_Prompt: first person_

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><p><strong>Firsts<br>**

Within five hours of their initial meeting, Warden-Commander Kallian Tabris had something else to add to her growing list of heretofore unheard-of accomplishments: she had gained Anders' respect, if not necessarily his loyalty. Serene in front of the templars demanding his head, she had done what no one had ever bothered to do before. She looked at Anders and saw something more than just a mage, a dangerous apostate, more than just an apprentice with a penchant for trouble. She saw someone worth defending, someone worth taking a risk on. She saw potential, saw what he could be rather than what he was. She was the first person to not only dare him to do better, but gave him the means and the motivation to do just that. She challenged him and in challenging him made him stronger. Better. _More_.

And, okay, let's be honest here (he wasn't, as a general rule, but for her he was willing to make the effort). The whole "drove a sword through the Archdemon's skull" thing may gave had something to do with it.

She enthralled him and intimidated him in equal parts and that was enough to keep him at her side through talking darkspawn and chalices of poison, through reconstruction and haunted marshes. Long after all experience said he would flee, he was there.

Three weeks later in an abandoned warehouse in Amaranthine, surrounded by dead templars, Warden-Commander Kallian Tabris earned not just Anders' loyalty, but his devotion.

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><p><em>So, since I haven't mentioned it before, I would love to hear your thoughts on any or all of these. What am I doing well, what's horrid, what rings true, what's horribly out of character, anything of the sort.<em>

_...please?_


	18. Poker Face

Disclaimer: Not mine

_Prompt: everybody lies_

I should not be nearly as amused as I am by my use of a Lady GaGa song for a title...

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><p><strong>Poker Face<strong>

Hawke shook her head in amusement as Anders shoved another handful of bits toward Varric with a scowl. She wasn't certain why the mage kept letting himself get drawn into these games – he didn't even have the excuse of alcohol clouding his judgment the way the rest of them did. But every week without fail he ended up embroiled in the second most pathetic attempt at Wicked Grace Hawke had ever seen (the most pathetic attempt sat two seats down from him, frowning at her cards as though they had personally offended her. Despite Isabela and Varric's best attempts, Merrill still did not quite understand the concept of a bluff) and every week he walked out of the Hanged Man several silvers poorer than when he had entered. She couldn't figure out why Justice hadn't put a stop to it weeks ago.

It was funny, in a way – Anders: apostate, revolutionary, abomination, and owner of the worst poker face this side of the Waking Sea. She hoped that whatever plans he made to further his revolution did not require any actual deception, because she couldn't see how he would manage to fool anyone. It was something of a comfort to know that this was someone who would not - _could_ not lie to her, a relief after dealing with the world of high society into which she had only just been thrown. She could trust him, if only because she would always know when he was lying to her.

(It takes six years for Hawke to realize just how wrong she was and by then it was far, far too late.)


	19. Someone Else's Fairy Tale

Disclaimer: Not Mine

_Prompt: jealousy_

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><p><strong>Someone Else's Fairy Tale<br>**

The assassin made her _happy_; that was the wost part of this whole thing as far as Anders was concerned. He made her genuinely happy, the kind of happiness that you only heard about in tales, the kind that "happily ever afters" were made of. The kind that lead to the normally-composed Warden Commander of Amaranthine all but dancing through the halls of Vigil's Keep, dopey grin on her face. And that was when he was a thousand miles away. Anders couldn't imagine what it was like when they were _together_.

It made everything infinitely more difficult. If she hadn't loved him, if she had stayed with him out of some overdeveloped sense of loyalty or for the comfort of the familiar, then Anders would have had no qualms with insinuating himself between them, luring her away from her absent Antivan and toward him. But it wasn't duty, it wasn't loyalty. It was love. It was Maker-blessed storybook love and even Anders, philandering mage that he was, could not bring himself to try to come between them. Andraste's mercy, he had faced the blighted Archdemon at her side; how was Anders supposed to compete with that? All he had managed to do during the entirety of their acquaintance was embroil her beloved Wardens in a hopeless stand-off with the templars.

But that was the point, wasn't it? He wasn't _supposed_ to compete with that. His commander was completely, utterly, without exception off-limits, and that was something he was just going to have to accept. And he would. He would take his ill-advised, inappropriate... _affection_ for her and he would tuck it away deep inside himself, let it wither away into something more suitable for a subordinate to feel for his superior officer. Loyalty. Admiration. Friendship, even, if he was very lucky. He would have that, and he would be satisfied. Because he was caught up in her orbit now and no matter how painful it might be, no force in Thedas could make him leave her side.


	20. This Broken Blade

Disclaimer: Not mine

_Prompt: mercy_

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><p><strong>This Broken Blade<strong>

Hawke knows what will happen next, knows from the moment she steps toward Anders how this will end. Even as she stares down at where he sits, hunched over on himself amidst debris still falling from the sky, her hand grips the hilt of her knife. She knows what must follow.

What she does not know is _why._

What is it that drives her forward, that forces her into this act that twelve hours ago would have been utterly unthinkable?

Sebastian kneels not twenty feet away, calling for justice for Elthina, justice for those dead at Anders' hand. Justice. Maker, how she hates that word.

Is it justice, what she will do here tonight? Will another death truly atone for the sins that have been committed in the name of that ideal? Will this balance the scales?

She does not believe that. It has been a long time since she has believed in justice at all. How can she, when everywhere she looks justice and vengeance were so easily confused?

She does not believe this is vengeance, either.

She knows what will happen, should she falter in her course now. Knows the punishment Kirkwall inflicts on her rogue mages. She has seen their empty eyes, heard their lifeless voices everywhere for the last seven years. They have dogged her steps, haunted her dreams. A fate worth than death, he had called it.

Tranquility.

The greatest terrorist Kirkwall has known in an age will not be spared that fate, not if the city has anything to say about it.

It is not justice that drives Hawke's blade into Anders' spine, not vengeance that sends him into a crumpled heap on the ground.

It is mercy.


End file.
